On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:59:57 -0600, Joe Strout wrote:
> There are only the two cases, which Greg quite succinctly and accurately
> described above. One is by value, the other is by reference. Python
> quite clearly uses by value.
That is absolute nonsense, based on the idiotic assumption that
programmers should care more about an arbitrary reference to a value than
to the value itself.
I'm sure I've quoted the excellent effbot before, but he deserves
repeating:
[quote]
well, I guess you can, in theory, value an artificial number assigned
to an object as much as the object itself.
"Joe, I think our son might be lost in the woods"
"Don't worry, I have his social security number"
[end quote]
As I wrote yesterday:
The value of a Python name is the Python object assigned to it, not an
arbitrary memory location that points to the object. Even you would
consider it obfuscatory if I executed this code:
x = "Norwegian Blue"
and then insisted that the value of x was "3086179808L, but if I run that
line of code again it could get another value, and naturally if you run
it on your computer you're almost certain to get a different value".
By your definition of "value=reference", the above is perfectly correct,
and utterly, completely pointless, useless and unhelpful. It's rather
like listing the ingredients of a cake as "Atoms". Technically true, but
missing the point.
Once we discard the unhelpful assumption that value=reference, your
entire argument falls apart.
--
Steven
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